To access this course, you will need to go to the URL hhttps://blackboard.uncp.edu/.
Once you register for the course, you will automatically be enrolled
in the Blackboard site. You will not be able to login to the class
without a username and password; you must apply for a UNCP email account
(which can be done online). The first time you attempt to enter the
course, you will need this information to logon to the course. From
then on, you will logon to the course using the same username and password
University Computing supplies to you.I
expect each of you to participate in the discussion board for this
week.

Course Requirements:

To do well in this online course, you must keep up with the readings and actively participate in the discussion board. Students should plan to devote as much time to the Blackboard site as they would attending a traditional classroom (at least three hours a week). This does not include time spent reading, studying for exams, writing papers, etc.

The course is designed to expose students to significant voices in Native
American literature. Obviously, we can't cover all of this literature or
even everything contained within the anthology we are using. Our goal is
to study a sampling of texts within Native American literature as we work
towards an understanding of how this literature has developed and evolved.
We will be paying particular attention to the ways in which Indian authors
write within, outside of, and against the dominant canon of literature. Some
of the questions we will be asking are: Who is an Indian? What is Native
American literature? How does Indian literature relate to American literature
in general? One of the main objectives of this class is to help students
see how the study of literature both informs and is informed by all other
aspects of a general college education.

Please be aware that literature often contains language and/or events that an individual might find offensive. Writers reflect the worlds they know, and like it or not, there are lots of people in the world who do use language some might find inappropriate. So literature is filled with all sorts of characters, many who use profanity, commit terrible crimes, lie, betray others, etc. As we analyze literature, we also advance theories about what the author may be trying to say through these characters and plots.

This Native American literature class will also cover a diversity of perspectives on the social, cultural, economic, spiritual, and political issues of concern to many Indigenous peoples, expressed primarily in their own words. These are part of the experiences of many Native writers’ lives and we will consider them in the spirit of intellectual inquiry.

The course demands a lot of reading,
and I expect material to be read before discussions begin for that material.
Please plan to discuss the material extensively on the Discussion Board because
I don’t expect to do all the posting. Remember, we are all here to
explore ideas and figure out what we think.

There will also be two longer
papers (4-6 pages), two response essays, a midterm and a final. The longer
papers must incorporate outside sources and must be written on the literature
that we cover in this course. The final will be cumulative.

Note: Please refer to the ETL department’s website
for departmental guidelines and plagiarism policy (http://www.uncp.edu/etl/) It is up to you, especially since you have passed English
1050 or an equivalent before being allowed to take this course, to
know what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. If you are caught plagiarizing,
you may
fail the course and could be reported to the Vice Chancellor for Student
Affairs. The usual penalty is a grade of "F" in the course.

Please let me know if you feel another student is plagiarizing your ideas
on the discussion board.

Note: Any student with a documented learning, physical, chronic health, psychological, visual or hearing disability needing academic adjustments
is requested to speak directly to Disability Support Services (DF Lowry Building, Room 107, 521-6695) and the instructor, as early in the semester
(preferably within the first week) as possible. All discussions will remain
confidential.

For Education Students: This course relates to UNCP Teacher
Education Standard #1. The class helps the teacher candidate to command essential
knowledge and understandings of the academic discipline (in this case, the
study of literature) from which school subject matter is derived and integrate
that knowledge into personally meaningful frameworks.

Grading:

Responses

100 pts.

10%

Paper 1

100 pts.

10%

Midterm

300 pts.

30%

Paper 2

100 pts.

10%

Discussion Board

100 pts.

10%

Final

300 pts.

30%

Total

1000 pts.

100%

I use a thousand point grading system. All grades will be given as
numbers with final grades computed as follows: A=933-1000; A-=900-932;
B+=866-899; B=833-865; B-=800-832; C+=766-799; C=733-765; C-=700-732;
D+=666-699; D=633-665; D-=600-632; F=<600.

Please take heed of the following:

• Attendance is mandatory. I will take attendance most days.
If you disappear for more than two weeks of class for any reason, I
may assign you a grade of F for the course. Please let me know in advance
if you will be absent (if at all possible). You are also responsible
for any information you miss if you are absent.
• I do not accept late assignments for any reason without my prior
consent. I’m usually more than willing to help you out, but you must talk
to me beforehand. I have voicemail and email. Late papers will receive a 0 grade.
• If you need to talk to me, please take advantage of my office hours
or email me. I am also more than willing to meet by appointment.
• I may be giving pop quizzes throughout the semester, so be sure and do
the reading. Quizzes cannot be made up. I expect a lot of class participation
during the course and will give quizzes only if it seems there is litle participation
or that students are not reading the material.
• Disruptive behavior will not be tolerated (please review the discussion
board guidelines posted under the course documents button). If behavior like
this persists, you will be asked to leave the class and receive a grade of F
for the course.

* There will be no work for "extra credit." Keep
up with the reading and do the work

All reading assignments should be completed by the first day that
we begin discussion.

Discussion Board

Most of the communication in the course will take place on the discussion
board. Each week I will set up a forum so that we can discuss the readings.
I will usually post a brief comment or two and pose a few questions.
Remember that this is merely a way of getting you started thinking
about the material. You are free to start posts yourself on aspects
of the works you find interesting. The point here is for us to have
good conversations about the material as we address both structure
and content.

If you start a thread, please give it a title that helps us understand
what the topic will be. This will help each of you study for exams.
A title like "Environment in Momaday's Essay" is a lot beter than "Momaday."

Replying to my initial post is fine as long as you change the subject line to reflect the topic you are addressing. Note that you can change the subject even when you reply to a post. We want to keep the threads as organized as possible, and giving them a good subject will be helpful.

The forum will be graded and the MINIMUM requirement is that you post
at least twice a week. Obviously, the more you participate, the better
your grade will be. You will have from Monday through Friday to post each week for the grade. Posts after that will not count in the grading.

I also suggest you read the discussion board guidelines available
in the course documents section of Blackboard.

Papers

Although you are asked to do two papers for this course, you will
turn in the same paper twice. The first time it is due, I will grade
it and comment extensively. You should use my suggestions and advice
to improve the paper, in both form and content, before it is turned
in to me the second time. These papers must be 4-6 typed, double spaced
pages and they must use at least three secondary
critical sources as
evidence. These papers are not reports. You need to
come up with a thesis statement about a work of literature we cover
in the course and then explain your point through careful analysis
of the text while blending in outside sources. The scholarly articles
you will find as you do research should serve as examples of the types
of writing I am looking for. Also, the campus publication ReVisions
contains good examples of student writing about literature. I encourage
you to run your proposed topic/thesis statement by me before you begin
work. If you do not revise your paper, you will receive a lower grade
than you did on it the first time. Revision is part of the assignment.

Response Essays

Two times during the semester, you will turn in a 2-3 page response
essay on a work we will cover. These short writings should be well
developed articulations/explanations of what issues and or themes you
see the writer developing in the work. They are not summaries.
Explain why you think what you do through examples from the text, examples
that you explain. These papers do not have to
include outside sources.
Each essay will be worth a possible 50 pts. You must write the response and submit it before we
discuss the work on the discussion board; your writing will help us
extend the discussion of that work of literature. Therefore, they are
due Sunday night by 9:00 pm. I will post a forum called "Respose
Essays." You will copy and paste your response essay into this
thread with a thread title that is the same as the piece you are responding
to. There will be no specific due dates for these. However, there will
be two deadlines, one for the first and one for the second. I do not
want a flood of response essays on the deadline days. I encourage you
to do them sooner rather than later.

Safe Assign

Papers and response essays must be submited to Safe Assign within Blackboard. This site checks for any plagiarism
in your essays. Essays must be submitted in Word
or RTF within the course site; please do not use any symbols or numbers in the file names. Both submissions
must be made by the deadlines provided. Note that response essays will
be 1) submitted in the Assignments Area and 2) copied and pasted into the Response Essay forum as a separate
thread so your peers can read and comment (see above). Please do not attach as a file.

Midterm and Final

The midterm and final will consist of identification (I give you a
quote and you supply author, title, character, and significance), short
answer, and essay. When providing the significance of a passage, be
sure to explain what the quotation tells us about the theme or the
message of the work. The exam will be administered through Blackboard
and will be timed. Make sur ethat your browser is compatible with Blackboard.
The final will be cumulative. Any questions should be directed to the Helpdesk.

Online Office Hours

Though I am on email most of the
time, I will be checking email for sure every Monday and Wednesday
between 8:00-9:00 am.

Course Schedule (Always Subject to Change)

Dates Reflect the Monday of the Week. All reading should be completed
by Monday when the Discussion Board opens.

All readings (except novels) can be found in the anthology Nothing But the Truth.

All reading assignments should be completed by the first day that we begin discussion.

14 "The American Indian Fiction Writers: Cosmopolitan, Nationalism, the
Third World, and First Nation Sovereignty" Elizabeth Cook-Lynn; "Towards
a National Indian Literature: Cultural Authenticity in Nationalism" Simon
J. Ortiz

11 Introduction (412-415) "13/16", "The Business of
Fancydancing", "How to Write the Great American Indian Novel", Sherman Alexie; "Rewriting
Your Life", "Rituals, Yours--and Mine", "Where
I Was That Day" Kimberly Bleaser; "The Old Man's Lazy", "Drum", "Reflections
on Milkweed" Peter Blue Cloud

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke has a legal and moral obligation to accommodate all students who must be absent from classes or miss scheduled exams in order to observe religious holidays; we must be careful not to inhibit or penalize these students for exercising their rights to religious observance. To accommodate students’ religious holidays, each student will be allowed two excused absences each semester with the following conditions:

1. Students, who submit written notification to their instructors within two weeks of the beginning of the semester, shall be excused from class or other scheduled academic activity to observe a religious holy day of their faith. Excused absences are limited to two class sessions (days) per semester.

2. Students shall be permitted a reasonable amount of time to make up tests or other work missed due to an excused absence for a religious observance.

3. Students should not be penalized due to absence from class or other scheduled academic activity because of religious observances.

A student who is to be excused from class for a religious observance is not required to provide a second-party certification of the reason for the absence. Furthermore, a student who believes that he or she has been unreasonably denied an education benefit due to religious beliefs or practices may seek redress through the student grievance procedure.